I According to a well-entrenched and highly influential scheme for interpreting the development of ancient philosophy, to group Empedo cles, Anaxagoras and the atomists together as 4 the post-Parmenidean thinkers 9 is no mere exegetical convenience. 1 That they come after Parmenides is not just a chronological fact: what they have to say is importantly constrained by their acceptance of central Eleatic tenets. The individual contributions of these Presocratics together constitute a cohesive chapter of philosophical history because all of them either endorse Parmenides' fundamental contention, 2 that in truth nothing comes into or goes out of existence, or at the very least agree that 1 Scholars naturally enough reveal their commitment to the scheme in their choice of chapter and section titles, e.g. "THE IONIAN RESPONSE" (G. S. Ki rk, J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers, revised edition [Cambridge: 1983], hereafter KRS) and "PARADISE REGAINED" following Eleaticism's U THE SERPENT" (Jonathan Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers, revised edition [London: 1982]). Not that their allegiance is by any means restricted to expression in rubrics: "Parmenides' metaphysics dominated fifth- century Ionian philosophy, which constitutes the last stage of Presocratic specula- tion. Individual, ingenious and often creative as the leading Ionian thinkers were, each of them is appropriately seen as responding to his radical critique of common-sense belief in the world about us" and "... these post-Parmenidean systems are deliberately designed to take account of the findings of the Truth (mediated, in the atomists' case, by Melissus)" (KRS, 351, largely preserving the substance and tone of the original Kirk and Raven). That the revamped KRS will serve as the handbook of a new generation of students is in itself enough to guarantee the currency of this type of interpretation. 2 This is not to imply that Parmenidean rather than Melissan reasoning prompted rejection of the possibility of existential change (sec KRS' description of the atomists' situation in the preceding note); one should perhaps speak of a general s Eleatic 'heritage', and in what follows I shall in fact concentrate on the repercus- sions of an argument of Melissus'. 9 Arch. Gesch. Philosophic Bd. 70 126 R . B . B . War dy t here mu s t be something in the world satisfying his demands for changelessness. Thus one might conceive of the post-Eleatics as re- wri t i ng or supplement ing the Way of Seeming, either by explaining how it is t hat delusive appearances occur or by offering alternative specifications of them (obviously this division of labour is artificially neat and cannot be exclusive). Clearly, to believe that this is all there is to these philosophers would be to do an injustice to the richness of their speculations and unfairly to exaggerate the demands of the dominant interpretation, since the implicat ion is not that their thought include no more than a recognition of the Eleatic dismissal of genesis and destruction, but rather that it contains at least so much. Nevertheless an adherent of this view ought to concede that the first criterion to be employed in evaluating this phase of Greek philosophy should be a measure of the success of the various responses to Parmenides So far as the atomists 3 in particular are concerned, an appropriate specification of the standard scheme is to be found in Aristotle, the originator of the tradition. I shall return to Aristotle's specific idea t hat Leucippus attempted to effect a compromise between Eleatic argu- mentation and the perceptual phenomena in due course; for the con- struction of the problem which I wish to confront, simple recognition of the almost universally accepted claim of De Generatione et Corrup- tione (A8), that the atomists inherited a major portion of their metaphy- sics from Parmenides and his followers, will suffice. According to this respected description of atomistic basics, the Eleatic cornerstone is left untouched insofar as there is no coming to be or passing away of the atoms themselves. It is granted that motion is impossible without void, but maintained that since what is not somehow is, locomotion can and does occur. Zeno's divisibility di- lemmas are met by the introduction of atomism's characteristic thesis. Finally, since there is what is not to divide up homogeneous being, Leucippus and Democritus are free to postulate the existence of a mult it ude of bodies each of which is like the One, 4 perhaps stimulated by Melissus' confident avowal that a pluralit y (per impossibile, he t hinks ) would have to be like that: , 3 None of my arguments will depend on any supposed differences between Leu- cippus and Democritus, and I intend them to apply to both atomists indiffererft ly; variat ions in reference are accordingly altogether casual. 4 Needless to say my swift resume has skirted a cluster of fearfully thorny difficul- ties, but they can safely be ignored so far as the present task is concerned. Elealic Pluralism 127 (DK 30B 8). 5 Thus Presocratic atomism seems to follow the pattern of post-Parmenidean response: although the arguments for monism and against motion are rejected, those banning genesis and destruction are respected, at least with regard to the system's elements, so that it might be characterised as an Eleatic pluralism, albeit in a sense vague but likely to prove weak. Since they apparently all failed to detect the flaws in his deduction and so were not capable of actually dismantling Parmenides' Truth, what philosophical challenge remained to stimulate the contributors to the Ionian reaction? If the rejection of the very possibility of existential change is regarded as legitimate, then the primary difficulty with monistic Eleaticism is not so much the sheer bizarreness of its positive doctrine as its total incapacity to cope with error. The world looks as though it has parts which alter in a great variety of ways, or rather more strongly, all that appears to us is a multiplicity of ephemera: how can the static One generate such appearances? The original Eleatics may have got hold of the truth, but so long as they cannot account for falsity consistently with their endorsed theses, they are liable to the charge of incoherence. The Way of Seeming could routinely be read in antiquity 6 (and on occasion considerably more recently) as straight assertion by those convinced that Parmenides was compelled to give way before the force of an undeniable, familiar reality. 7 Scholars sympathetic to his thought can do no better than plead for the consistency of his intentions on the basis of a 'rhetorical' reading of the goddess's deceitful words 8 without explaining how it might be that Parmenides can without 5 References to texts as in H. Diels and W. Kranz, eds.. Die Fragmente der Vorsokra- tiker (Z rich: 1951) (DK), unless otherwise indicated. 6 E. g. DK 28A 23 (Hippolytus), 34 (Plutarch, Simplicius). 7 ... ' 9 , , , , > ... (Aristotle, Met. 986B31 -4). 8 . g. A. A. Long, The principles of Parmenides' cosmogony', Phronesis 8 (1963). 90-107 and A. P. D. Mourelatos, The Route of Parmenides (New Haven: 1970). In 'Parmenides' dilemma', Phronesis 27 (1982), 1-12, M. M. Mackcn/ic directly confronts the problem, but concludes that Parmenides positively embraced its insolubility: "Monism requires that t hi nk i ng be indiscernible from being, and denies that there are a plurality of thinkers. That is f atal to dialectic, and Ihus to the argument itself. Pluralism allows for individuation; but commits us to the irrational. This dilemma is the relation between the Alcthcia and the \. The 9* 1 2 X R . B . B . Wa r c i y e m b ar r as s m e n t af f o rd t o ackn o wl e d ge even t he mere appearance o f w h a t l ie i n s i s t s can n o t be . Pl at o depict s a Zcno who impl icit l y confesses his mas t e r' s t ro u b l e : he wishes t o d e mo n s t rat e t hat consequences even more ahsnrtl ( , Parm. 128D) t han those entailed by Pan n e n id e s ' hypo t he s is f o l l o w f ro m t he supposit ion t hat t here is a pl u r a l i t y. Thu s we mi ght speculate t hat Eleat ic pluralism evolved as an attempt t o pro vid e t he armo u r wi t h which t o shield t he immensely vulnerable u n d e rs id e of Parme nid e an philo s o phy: the atomists come up wit h a genesis of f alsehood to supplement the deduction of t rut h. Accordingly we suppose t hat t hey int ro d uce t heir hypotheses in the belief that they are the min imal modif icat ions requisite for the provision of an . So in f o llo wing up the t radit ional interpretation of the at o mis t s we wo ul d anticipate t hat Democritean philosophy is centrally concerned wit h, if not the explanat ion of error, then at least the e s t ab l is hme n t of its possibilit y, rather than wit h t rut h t rut h is in large measure a given. The problem wit h t his story as usually told is t hat it uncomfortably suggests t hat the atomists put in a very poor performance. At first b l us h it would seem t hat Leucippus and Democritus are content to co nt ravene the Eleatic ban in their conception of macroscopic objects so long as t hey obey it in their description of the microscopic constitu- e nt s of those objects but why should the difference in scale be a dif f erence relevant to the admissibility of genuine existential change? I shall claim t hat st udent s of ancient philosophy at this juncture typically eit her f ail to perceive the apparent gravity of the atomists' plight, or if t he y do recognize it, nevertheless shirk a f ull consideration of the consequences. There are two prima facie choices: we must either fight against the now standard view of this stretch of philosophical history or develop a reading of atomism novel at least in its emphasis. I shall at t empt the lat t er task. Thus my motivating contention is t hat a posit ion combining adherence to the favoured exegetical scheme and some version of the conventional interpretation of atomism should be occupied o nl y as a last resort, since this conjunction presents a pair of major philosophers in a surprisingly unattractive guise. Accordingly I o f f e r a disjunct ion: either endorse something like my reading of at omism or j u n k the idea of a general post-Parmenidean reaction; to t ension between the two is not only a necessary consequence of Parmenides' argume nt , but is a consequence t hat he foresaw and wished to exploit" ( 7 8). Eleatic Pluralism 129 the extent that my account (or a comparable alternative) f ails to convince, we should regard that popular idea as under threat before concluding that the atomists were indeed seriously concerned to de- velop a response to Eleaticism which turns out a disappointment. My procedure will be as follows. First, I shall employ the conceptual materials of ancient atomism in order to delineate a thesis about the distinction between micro-constituents and macro-conglomerates intended to meet the challenge of a particular Eleatic argument. Only then shall I attempt to attribute such a stance to Democritus. I adopt this order because the pertinent doxography is scanty, uninf ormative and actually misleading if I am correct in my major claims, a state of af f airs itself significant and worthy of some explanation. Furthermore, since I maintain that any alternative reconstruction suf f i- cient for salvaging the unitary overview of post-Parmenidean philoso- phy must at least match mine in strength, in the last analysis it perhaps suffices to have a version of radical atomism before us for inspection. That is to say that the situation demands serious consideration of the possibility that Leucippus and Democritus advocated a theory that deserves to be regarded as Eleatic pluralism in a strong sense. II In the course of his methodical negative description of the One Melissus rules out the possibility of the rearrangement of what is: "for the which was earlier does not perish, nor does a which is not come into being" (DK 30B 7). The repercussions of his rigour can hardly be exaggerated: 9 this particular denial obliges an 9 Barnes denies that any of the later Presocratics recognised the f ull force of Melissus' contention (216: his f ormulation of the argument involves reference to the arrangement of what is, over and above what is arranged). In his summing- up of this philosophical epoch he concludes: "I do not t hi nk that any neo-Ionian got a glimpse of the danger, or took any evasive action" (433), the danger being that Melissus' denial forbids locomotion because it excludes change in relative position. However, Barnes's case depends on the supposition that no nco-Ionian intentionally did avoid (or could have avoided?) reference to patterns (432), where again these must be real things constituted by their ingredients' positional relations, so t hat atomic relational change might be identical wi t h, or at any rale responsible for, macroscopic real change. My project is precisely to work oui how the atomists might have evaded the grave di f f i cul t y which Barnes believes they didn't even perceive, and to claim t hai this was indeed their st rat egy 130 R . B . B . Wa r d y a t o m i s t i c l i l e a t i c lo a b s t a i n f ro m q u a n t i f y i n g over macroscopic aggre- g at e s of m i c ro s c o pi c c o rpu s c l e s (o r i ndeed over any group). Rearrange- m e n t o f wh a t i s c o nt rave ne s t he ban o n e xi s t e nt i al change, i f a configur- a t i o n i s a t h i n g o ve r and abo ve, di s t i nc t f ro m , t he ent i t i es const i t ut i ng i t . In o rde r t o par r y t he Meli s s an arg u m e nt o ne m u s t make o u t t hat r e ar r ang e m e nt pro pe rl y u nders t o o d i nvol ves ju s t relat i onal change, i n po s i t i o n . Mo reo ver, i f t enabl e t hi s stance wi l l provi de t he beginnings of a defenc e for Parmenides: since mere spatial s hi f t is typically mis- c o ns t r u e d as real change, appare nt l y cont radi ct i ng Eleatic reasoning, g ro u nds for t he pos s i bi li t y of hu m an error and i t s diagnosis become avai l ab l e o n t he at omi s t i c hypot hes i s . However, t he re is ju s t the appearance of actual change only so long as it is at least theoretically possible to s ubs t i t ut e for every ostensible referenc e to a macroscopic object or its correlative atomic configuration a de s c ri pt i o n cast exclusively in terms of atoms and their spatial re l at i o ns . Ot herwi se, one's ontology contains a fat al residue of change- abl e , ephemeral t hi ngs , and the game against Melissus is lost. Refusal to c o u nt enanc e groups of atoms is necessary to fend off the criticism t hat a new is an impossibly new t hi ng it's not, inasmuch as an arrang e me nt , whether of atoms or anyt hi ng else, dissolves i nt o the sum of the relat i ons subsisting between the only authentic beings, since these spatial relat i ons are not themselves . Properly understood, the succession of which constitutes the delusive play of appear- ance is simply relational change, safely involving no alteration of the i nt ri ns i c properties of what really is, let alone any substantial coming to be or perishing. There is no macro-world. There is a micro-world, but t hat means t hat there are atoms, not groups of them, and proper discourse woul d reflect t hi s crucial fact by restricting its referring terms to i ndi vi du al atoms. The sole feat ures of an o rdi nary macro-description whi c h s u rvi ve transcription i nt o the proper micro-vocabulary are plu- ral i t y and movement . The belief t hat the atomists should have adopted such a position fol l ows di rect ly fro m the not i on t hat they sincerely endorsed the thesis t hat real change does no t , cannot occur, and grasped its ramifications, especially the i mpli cat i ons of Melissus' elimination of rearrangement. As previ ously not ed, there are grounds for supposing that his deduc- Thus al t ho u g h my conclusions contradict his, Barnes's work provides the direct s t i mu l u s for mine, and all students of the Presocratics owe him t hanks for stressing the i ndependent importance of Melissus' reasoning. Eleatic Pluralism 131 tions rather than the Parmenidean arguments themselves were the primary influence on Leucippus and Democritus: they take up the challenge preserved in his fr.8 by asserting that there are many things each of which possesses the immutable attributes characteristic of a true entity, according to the inherited truth. But postulation of a strongly Eleatic plurality does nothing to establish that the fami l i ar stuffs castigated by Melissus are real. His enumeration of what merely seems to be includes substances like earth, water, air, fire, iron and gold as well as qualities like pale and dark. The attack embraces all ordinary objects and properties, and thus undermines the claim that we see and hear and understand aright. It might be supposed that the atomistic hypotheses somehow ensure the survival of the macro-world and its inhabitants on the grounds that composite objects are identical with their constituent atoms and void, and these are properly immutable. However, this cannot be so. A bit of gold is identical with its atoms taken not individually, but collectively; the gold is the aggregate, 10 which is thus no less impossibly mutable than any object considered in ordinary, non-atomistic terms. Viewed aright, the identity of composite with its constituents, so far from confirming its actuality on the faulty supposition that it might inherit the changelessness which its atoms severally possess, in fact establishes the unreality of those constituents as a group. The atomists' theory does not vindicate the apparent macroscopic world even if it be re-described in accordance with that theory. We should not assume that they were concerned to protect Melissus' original targets or to disavow his condemnation of the senses (perhaps more accurately, of the beliefs to which they give rise). Nothing which changes is real, or rather, nothing which really changes is real if this line of thought is correct, then Democritus is not a reductionist. To qualify as such, he would have to reduce macroscopic objects to collections of atoms and void: 11 but he does not concede the reality of 10 The idea that the gold irreducibly 'supervenes' on the aggregate hardly helps, since it would effectively block from the outset any hope t hat atomic changeless- ness might somehow percolate up to the macroscopic level. For comment on t hi s issue in general see the following note. 11 My position is that the whole issue of reductionism is simply irrelevant to t he discussion of Democritus, since if I am right then he docs not even recognise t he existence of anyt hi ng that mi ght be a candi dat e for reduction. The belief t ha t ' Democritus is a reductionist, indeed the fat her of reductionism, is widespread, e. g.: "Because phenomenal objects and properties seemed to reduce to mere 1 3 2 R . U . B . W a r c l y s uc h c o l l e c t i o n s be cause t h e y a r c n o less v u l n e r a bl e t h a n t he supposedly r e duce d o bj e c t s t o Me l i s s a s ' accusat i o n t h a t such t hi n gs wo ul d be i m po s s i b l y c h a n ge a bl e . On e m u s t n o t a dm i t t h a t distinct c o n f i gu r a t i o n s evolve over t i me. The a t o m i s t s do n o t wi n i f t he y me r e l y speak o f collect i ons o f atoms an d v o i d i n s t e a d o f pe r ce pt i bl e , large-scale t hi n gs, since such collections do n o t e x i s t . R a t h e r t he y succeed i n me e t i n g Meli ssus' challenge i f t hey can (i n a sense t o be di scussed) re-describe a macroscopic object as a f a c t i t i o u s "aggre gat e ' o n l y a r bi t r a r i l y e xt r i cabl e fr o m t he cont i nuous l o c o mo t i ve pa t hs followe d by some ar bi t r ar i l y selected group of a t o m s . 1 2 I f , o n t he c o n t r a r y , po si t i o n al specification i s n o t arbi t rary, i de n t i t y c o n di t i o n s for aggregates whi ch force recognition of tempor- a r i l y e x i s t e n t co n fi gur at i o n s can n o t very well be ignored. For instance, i f a t o m i c pa t t e r n p were t o be correlated wi t h a man (whether or not any r e duc t i ve i de n t i t y mi ght be i n que st i on), t he n p would come and cease t o be whe n t ha t man di d. For n ut she l l effect one could say t hat an Ele at i c pl ur a l i s t avo i ds depicting t he world fro m t he t op down not c o n f i gur a t i o n s of at oms and void, Democritus was inclined to suppose that the at o ms and voi d were real whi l e t he phe nome nal objects and properties were no mo r e t h a n a r bi t r a r y co n st r uct i o n s placed upon them by human cognitive organs" (Da v i d Sedley, 'Epi curus' R e fut at i o n of Determinism', in . Studi sulT epicureismo greco e romano offerti a Mar cello Gigante, vol. 1 [Naples: 1983], 1 1 5 1 [33]). Sedley pl ausi bl y suggests t hat Epicurus i s an anti-reductionist, and f u r t h e r speculat es t ha t i n t hi s he reacted against t he views of t he earlier atomists. The a r gume n t t ha t Epi curus read Democritus as a reduct i oni st is attractive, but sho ul d not lead us i n t o t he same mi st ake. Once t he Eleatic ban was fi nally li ft ed, it was pe rhaps i n e vi t abl e t hat the subt let y of Democritus' response to it would be i gnore d but t hi s i s t o an t i ci pat e t he argument for at t ri but i ng a strong El e at i c pl ur al i sm to the at omi st s despite the appare n t l y adverse implications of muc h o f t he do xo graphy. 12 Cf. t hi s pare n t he t i cal r e mar k of Sarah Waterlow, made in the cont ext of her di scussi on of Ari st ot le 's di ssolut i on of the Eleatic 'paradox of becoming': "The r e duct i o n of all change to locomotion of particles mi ght seem to o ffe r anot her way o ut , since it is clear t ha t in locomotion no new thing (i. e. subject of change) comes to be. Moreover the mat he mat i cal co n t i n ui t y of abstract mot i on entails a sense in whi ch a new ar r an ge me n t B of particles can never be said to supersede any si ngle spe ci fi able di ffe r e n t arrangement A, since between any two there was an o t he r . Thus B comes t o be n e i t he r ' fr o m' itself nor 'fro m' any condi t i on definitely not i t self, and so the paradox can perhaps be avoided" (Sarah Waterlow, Nature, Change and Agency in Aristotle's Physics, A Philosophical Study [Oxford: 1981], 12, n. 9). Eleatic Pluralism 133 on account of reductionist leanings, but just because there is no top. For him nothing can intervene between the level of single atoms and the factitious macrocosm, since arguments that he endorses dictate that there are no collections: in the Democritean universe the individual rules supreme because it alone is. Granted that the supposed aggregates of atoms and void that appar- ently correspond to ordinary objects have turned out not to exist, might there nevertheless not be other microscopic groupings, not corre- lated with macroscopic ephemera, which enjoy the permanence that Melissus demands? Expressed in linguistic terms, the condition for the acceptability of such patterns would be that no description referring to them could incorporate any features analogous to those which in ordinary language permit distinction between an object's history and the rest of time. Obviously if we prove capable of discerning any such 'proper' patterns, we shall hardly be tempted to assume that they are identical with macroscopic things. There is not always the same man because there is not always a man, while (and this would be the essence of the atomists' response, were they to advocate the concept of a permanent atomic collection) there is always a 'proper' pattern because the continuity of positional shift ensures that it remains the same. But could this last-ditch attempt to retain existents above the level of the incomposite individual achieve any worthwhile result? Eleatic pluralism prohibits quantification over the mutable atomic collections which would correspond to the apparently changeable things that we unreflectingly believe the senses present to us. Acceptance of these phantom aggregates into our ontology would induce a fundamentally mistaken, ultimately incoherent view of the world, as if one were to forget that our perceptual freeze-frames crucially omit the ceaseless movement of a sort of Democritean cinema. Were we only capable of seeing it properly, perhaps with the eyes of the mind, we would realise that in that film of reality a pattern remains the same to the extent that it does not become definitely different. 13 But then of course one is not entitled to claim more than that it remains indefinitely the same, and should confess that it is impossible to discern a single configuration objectively distinct from its predecessors and successors. Accordingly it might prove wisest to forgo talk of 'arrangements' altogether. An ostensible reference to a pattern, if licit, is equi val ent to (at least the pretence of) a specification of instantaneous at omi c 13 Again cf. Walerlow's conjecture (previous note). 134 R . B . B . Wa r t l y p o s i t i o n . U c a n n o t r e al l y refer to the ephemeral apparently c o n s t i t u t e d by g i v e n g rou pi ng s of atoms at some time, but only to the a t o ms so r e l at e d . The sole pattern for which one mi g ht claim strict i n d i v i d u a l i t y i s t ha t whi ch comprises every atom i n the enti re universe, since i t al one i s not subject to i n d e f i n i t e s hi f t i nto arrangements neither q u i t e the same nor q u i t e d i f f e re nt at its edges it doesn't have any, and so perhaps ou g ht not to be accepted in any case. The i n ha b i t a n t s of thi s f ami li ar world dissolve without remainder i n t o r e l at i ons between immutable microscopic existents. The appearan- ces whi ch d e l u d e us, leading us to suppose that there are things which a c t u a l l y undergo change, are themselves the products of shifts in these r e l at i ons and so less than real. Wi thi n a rigorous Eleatic language it is not even possible to begin to talk about the macrocosm which seems to be. We are not suspiciously requested to conform to the dictates of this austere discourse simply to avoid trouble for Parmeni- des: the all-important difference between real change and relational change provides an authentic justification for the prohibition. This completes my sketch of what I should like Democritus to have believed. It delivers just so much as is required in order to account for the misapprehensions to which ordinary people are liable. It allows one to see how on a view Eleatic in more than name mistakes are possible. Furthermore, no alternative, weaker thesis, permitting a more generous ontology, can successfully avoid the snares of Melissus' argu- ment. Untutored humanity's basic blunder occurs when what are in fact relations are wrongly regarded as things over and above their relata, wi th the disastrous consequence that mere relational change is fallaciously assimilated to impossible real change. Working out the details of this diagnosis is of secondary importance: given that indivi- dual atoms are inaccessible to our apprehension, it might even be the case that one must rest content with the general analysis of the delusive appearances and do without explanations of specific types of error and parti cular mistakes. However, the simple, undetailed account suffices for the supplementation and protection of Parmenidean philosophy's core, and thus would establish the validity of Eleatic pluralism on its own terms. It remains to attempt to attribute this success to Democritus himself. Ill The doxography provides some meagre evidence which I might exploit in support of my story, in particular the reports that Democritus insisted that the derivation Eleatic Pluralism \ 35 of an authentic uni t y from a plurality is impossible and that only atoms and the void are real. 14 Confusion sets in when one considers the plethora of interpretations of these striking (and puzzling) restrictions on offer, perhaps complementary, but not even clearly compatible. Obviously I should like to associate this famous dictum wi t h Eleatic pluralism as defined in the preceding section: only (individual) atoms and the void are real because anything composite would fall foul of Melissus' stringent argument against the possibility of rearrangement. Since there is no testimony explicitly to this effect, I shall review the various glosses on the atomistic denials, suggesting that some are inappropriate, others applicable but best combined with my reading. Perhaps the idea that composites only seem to be but are not really unities could underpin the unreality thesis, but if so one must explain why it should be supposed that macroscopic things lack unity and why this defect should undermine their claim to existence. It might be felt that on a certain reading satisfaction of this second requirement is easy. Legitimate entities are obviously not just simple manifolds: there are not 'really' any flocks of birds per se because all that is required to constitute some flock is a number of birds, and it apparently persists despite considerable and frequent changes in membership. The very fact that we are irremedi- ably vague on the survival conditions for such groups testifies to their dubious status (cf. the discussion of indefinite, 'permanent' atomic patterns in the last section). Therefore what remains obscure on this hypothesis are the atomists" grounds for believing that all macroscopic things lack organisational or structural unity, e. g. that despite appearances there is nothing to choose in this respect between the bird and the flock. Of course such a stance would be doomed from the outset: wilfully to insist that a bird is merely a random assortment of ingredients, corpuscular or otherwise, would be perversely to saddle oneself with an untenable view of organisms as fortuitous aggregates. This thesis is comparable with the consequences which Aris- 14 No strict unity from a plurality: Aristotle, GC A8 (325A35-6); DK 68A 37 (Simplicius); 68A 42 (Aristotle, Met. Z13, 1030A9-10). Alexander's claim that on the Democritean model true mixture does not occur (68A 64) might preserve a comparable denial on the part of the atomists, although it could simply reflect the fact that a collocation of discrete micro-particles is not a genuine from the Peripatetic point of view. Nothing but atoms and the void are real: DK 67A 32 (Aetius); 68A 49 (Galen); 68A 57 (Plutarch); 68B 9 (from Sextus); 68B 125 (from Galen); Plutarch, adv. Colot. 11JOE-F. In 67A32 "real" renders "" rather than "|", but the report clearly derives from the original group expressing the / contrast (indeed in 68A 49 Galen employs "" in conjunction with the quoted, perhaps narrowly atomistic technical terms). 68A 57, which distinguishes between the mere appearance ("&") of macroscopic complexes and atomic being % (""), follows closely after Plutarch's uni que version of the / opposi- tion (to be discussed in the following). 1 3 6 R . B . H . W u r d y l o l l e e x t r a c t s f r o m t h e R m pe do e l e a n s c heme o f de ve l o pm e nt a nd c ons iders a reductio o f t h a t t h e o r y (Physics i i . 8 ) it w i l l no t do t o a s s um e t h a t Democ rit us o f h is o w n accord e m br a c e d s uc h u n a t t r a c t i v e a nd unm o t iva t c d pro po s it io ns . Ac c o rdingl y w e m i g h t t u r n t o t he c onjec t ure t h a t t he atomisls denied t he unit y ( a n d c o n s e q u e n t l y t he r e a l it y) of macroscopic c o mpl e x object s not a s a res ul t of i n s e n s i t i v i t y t o t he presence of va r io us s t ruc t ures or princ ipl e s of orga nis a t ion d i s t i n g u i s h i n g t h e m f r o m mere heaps, but ra t her a t t he pro mpt ing of reduc t ionis t a m b i t i o n s . The new idea is t ha t t he pre s umpt ion t ha t t he bird consists of not hing but a t o m s a nd void, t h a t it is e x ha us t ive l y composed of a f unda me nt a l pl ura l it y, e n t a i l s t h a t it is n o t h i n g but a collect ion of a t oms a nd void. Of course t o a rgue in s uc h a f a s h io n w o ul d be t o commit a t ra ns pa re nt reduc t ionis t fallacy, so t ha t w e s h o ul d f a l l back on t his int e rpre t a t io n onl y if no t hing else is t o be f o und. H o w e ve r one c oul d object t ha t t his line of rea s oning is ha ppily s uperf l uous because t he a t o mis t s ' El ea t ic legacy w ould have inclined t he m t o t he belief t ha t a n y t h i n g w h ic h is a pl ur a l it y ( e. g. a complex, w he t he r a st ruct ured w hole or a loose c ol l e c t ion) ipso facto c a nnot be a unit y in any sense w hatsoever, precisely because t h e y fa iled to dis t inguis h betw een such senses. The evidence for this claim w ould be an e x t ra po l a t io n f rom Socrates' rejoinder t o Zeno (Farm. 129B C ) t ha t there is n o t h i n g odd in objects' being bot h one and ma ny in dif f e re nt respects by virt ue of pa rt ic ipa t ion in bot h Unit y and Plura lit y. Evident l y Plato implies that t he original a nt i-Pa rme nide a n plura lis t s w ere blind to such a possibility ( w hich Zeno in his pol emic a l zeal recognised but concealed?). 15 Thus one might conclude t ha t unde r t he misleading influenc e of Zenonian pa ra dox es t he a t omis t s argued as follow s for t he thesis t ha t no t rue unit y can come f rom a pl ur a l it y as a basis for the denial of reality to macroscopic composite objects. I f an a ppa re nt l y single something is in any w ay characterised by pluralit y, then it w o ul d per impossibile be at once one and ma ny, or really is jus t a pl ura l it y pure and s impl e. But since w ha t ever is, is a unit y, on t his l a t t er option it w ould be no t h ing in its ow n right ; in either case it does not actually exist. 16 Thus Democritus' 15 Tha t Pl a t o does not ment ion /?r0-Parmenidean pluralists w ho conceded t he va l idit y of the Zenonian dilemmas is neit her here nor there, since he notoriously omit s all ment ion of the atomists t hroughout his corpus. 16 Ba rnes seems to a t t ribut e some such reasoning to the atomists. Rema rking t ha t ( on his int e rpre t a t io n) t hey c a nnot have recourse t o an Eleatic ra t iona le for t he unre a l it y t hes is (444), he w rites: "Anything t hat t rul y exists is one t hing, a unit y; macroscopic objects are conglomerat ions of atoms; no conglomeration of objects can ever c ons t it ut e one t hing, a unit y; hence macroscopic objects do not t rul y ex is t . Tha t , I suppose, is t he met a phys ic a l f o unda t io n of t he At omist s' view t ha t macroscopic objects are unrea l " (445: w ha t relation, if a ny, t his claim bears to the ea rlier suggestion ( 225) t ha t macroscopic objects are unreal inasmuch as a ut h e nt ic physical bodies are necessarily solid is left obscure). This is ha rdl y lucid. Since he f a il s to expla in why he supposes Democritus denied t ha t a conglomera- t ion of objects can ever c ons t it ut e one t hing, a unit y, w het her on account of El eat i c P l u r a l i s m 137 posi t i on derives from nei t her a concern to respect the ban on real change nor r educt i oni s t leanings, but r at her originates in a logical misconception fostered ( i nnoc e nt l y or not ) by Zeno, an error pr i mi t i ve yet nevertheless genui nel y t r ou bl i ng before Plato got to work. My response to these accounts of the atomistic conviction t ha t no t r ue u ni t y , and t hu s no actual existent, is complex, is qui t e st rai ght forward. Gi ven t ha t none of our sources i nfor ms us of the reasons that Democritus adduced for the adopt i on of t hi s mani fes t l y significant view, guided by an obvious principle of exegctical char i l y we ought to adopt t hat candidate explanation from the range of plausibility which does him most credit. I f this is the approach to be followed, then clearly my reading (if possible) is preferable, since rather than accusing the atomists of fa u l t y logic or a very crude reductionism, it attributes to them an ar gument of a piece wi t h reasoning t ha t I have claimed they shoul d in consistency have endorsed. According to t hei r theory a complex would consist of a collection of atoms and void; but since such collections would be subject to rearrangement, which Melissus had established cannot occur, there are none. Thus onl y an incomposite i ndi vi dual is a u ni t y , because groupings are not real, single things. However, my at t i t ude towards the logical and the reductionist fallacy accounts need not be the same: while, as I have expl ai ned, Eleatic pl ur al i sm is s i mpl y incompatible wi t h advocacy of a reductionist programme, I need not insist t hat it could not be combined wi t h a belief, inspired by Zeno, t hat uni t y must be absolute. I n t hat case perhaps the atomists mi ght have argued dialectically on behalf of Eleaticism t hat even on the hypothesis t hat there is a pl ur al i t y (i. e. t ha t t here are groups over and above the i ndi vi dual s supposedly their members), no collection constitutes a real uni t y. But according to this story Democritus attempted doubl y to di s comfi t his opponents by seeking to wring embarrassment from the conse- quences of a hypothesis whose val i di t y he did not in propria persona concede no conflict wi t h Eleatic pluralism arises. So if we reject the reductionism interpretation, which lacks compelling grounds for its adoption, Democritus' doctrine concerning u ni t y is at the very least consistent wi t h, if not act ual l y prompted by, a theory constructed in order to avoid the admission of real change. So much for the implications of the first set of suggestive doxographical reports - the verdict must remain unclear, but certainly does not endanger the possibility t ha t as a mat t er of historical fact the ancient atomists indeed advocated a version of Eleatic pluralism. The remaining evidence whi ch mi ght tell in my favour , preserved in the formul ae recording a contrast between microscopic real i t y and macroscopic convent i onal i t y, yields r at her more decisive positive i ndi cat i ons . However, in order to glean t hi s benefi t from the fr agment s I must first t ake issue wi t h a c u r r e nt l y popu l a r reading of the restriction of true being to atoms and t he void based on these )/ di st i nct i ons. x r educt i oni st s ympat hi es or t he Zenoni an puzzles or s omet hi ng else, Barnes does not ma ke clear i f he t h i n k s t ha t t he a t omi s t s had good gr ou nds for t he i r bel i ef 138 R . B . B . Wa r d y Barnes n l l c m p l s to e x p l ai n I h e at omi s t s ' contrasl i n terms of a di vi si on he draws b et ween, on the one h an d, p ri mary (i . c. necessary) and proper qual i ti es of bodies ( i . e . de t e r m i n at i o n s of de t e rmi n ab l e pri mary features), and secondary physical qual i t i e s on the ot h e r. 17 He suggests t h at Democri l us denied th at atoms possess secondary qual i t i e s for the sake of expl anatory economy and si mpl y because some of t h e m , at l east, c annot characteri se the corpuscles (374). Havi ng assembled hi s Loc kei un mac h i nery Barnes sets it to work on the ancient unreal i t y thesis: "An easy gloss suggests i tsel f: if i mproper secondary qual i ti es can be accounted for by way of p ri mary and proper qual i ti es, then a complete account of the real world need me n t i on no i mproper secondary qual i ti es at all; for every fact expressible by a sentence of the form 'macroscopic object M has Q*' is equal l y, and more fundamen- t al l y, expressi bl e by a sentence of the form 'Atoms A t , A 2 , ... , havi ng Q t , Q 2 , ... , are arranged in pattern P' " (374). In order to make sense of the choice of "" as the general term for the secondary and unreal, he finally appends to his reading the idea t h at "All improper secondary qualities are explicable by way of qualities; and the expli cati on reveals that they are all mind-dependent" (376). 18 The probl em wi t h thi s i nfl uenti al reading is just that it is unmotivated and anachroni sti c, or rather lacking any moti vati on connected wi th concerns even tangenti al l y relevant to Democritean philosophy, unless one begs the question with the clai m that ancient atomism was essentially a project in reductionism. It borrows much of its appeal from the assumption that "" is to be construed as "mind- dependent" once that gloss is permitted, the temptation to accept the alleged 17 Havi ng formul ated what he labels principle (D3) "Q is if and only if Q is ei ther a pri mary or a proper qual i ty of bodies" Barnes does register a caveat: "I do not mean that the Atomists explicitly embraced (D3) there is no trace of any such definition in the doxography; but I think that (D3) is the thesis whi ch best expl ai ns the atomist atti tude to atoms and qualities"(373). My rival i nterpretati on is admi ttedly no less speculative, but has the advantage of chiming in wi th at t ri but i on to the atomists of a view on 'real' change (it is unreal) that permi ts them a success in confronti ng the Eleatic challenge which Barnes denies them (see the preceding note). 18 I focus my criticism on Barnes not because his version of such a story is inferior, but rather in response to his exceptionally unambiguous expression of this line thought, often apparentl y endorsed en passant (e. g. Sedley as quoted in note 11). KRS' attri buti on to Leucippus of a negative atti tude towards the deliverances of the senses i nsofar as they suggest that existential change occurs (410 11) is very close to my starti ng-poi nt. Their further idea that Democritus elaborated this i nheri ted critique, relegati ng all (potentially?) conflicting appearances to the conventi onal category in a move against Protagorean relativism, is again unexc^p- ti onabl e, and evidently compatible wi th my own reading. However their desig- nati on of the items classified as in fragment 9 as "secondary qualities" (411) is not explained and perhaps casual. Eleatic Pluralism 139 Lockeian parallel becomes overpowering. 19 But of course that is not what "" means (I do not intend to suggest that Barnes, or any other advocate of an exegesis resembling his, pretends otherwise), ""of itself means "conventional", and in the first instance we ought to assume nothing more than that in seeking an under- st andi ng of its import as a philosophical term with a quasi-technical status. (This is to neglect the triviality that all conventions are in an unexciting sense dependent on human minds for their creation and maintenance, but that is a point irrelevant to the evaluation of Barnes's interpretation.) Plutarch's version of the / contrast is unique in its accurate reflection of the atomists' unreality thesis in its full strength: , (adv. Coloi. 1110E-F). 20 We must not automatically dismiss this formulation as aberrant and 19 This is not to deny that there are subjectivist analyses of what Democritus classifies as merely "" to be found in the doxography, e. g. this comment of Galen's (DK 68A 49): .
, ' , '' '' 4 \ ' , '' , ', , . It is not part of my brief to argue that according to the atomists the sensible characters of macroscopic objects (for a start) are not somehow imposed on the world by the human mind. My complaint is that Barnes does nothing to draw a connection between the conventional category's nature as a mental (social?) construct and its recommended definition as the class of improper, secondary qualities, and invites the suspicion that he is playing on the conjunction of theses in the texts of Locke which inspire his conjecture to foist a similar doctrinal combination on Democritus. 20 Unfortunately the text is not certain, although the case for the significance of the adv. Colot. quotation luckily does not depend on emendation. Immediately after the crucial word, "", there is a lacuna in the manuscripts, which Wyttenbach suggests be stopped with "". This is perhaps preferable to the Loeb editors' " ", since on Wyttenbach's conjecture the conven- tional series culminates, as it should, with the inclusion of all complexes: see the apparatus in B. Einarson and P. H. De Lacy, eds., Plutarch's Moralia, vol. xiv (London: 1967). It is all too easy to dismiss the singular nature of Plutarch's version; for example, the punctuation of the Loeb translation surreptitiously brings it i nt o line with the other reports: "... 'colour is by convention, sweet by convention/ a compound by convention, and so the rest, 'what is real are the void and the atoms' ...". Professor Sandbach once actually went to the length of recommending that ""itself be eliminated (see the Loeb apparatus), but did so in t he belief that Democritus could have had no reason for denying the reality of atomic combinations, and confesses the palaeographical i mprobabi l i t y of t he corruption of his suggested "" i nt o "" (private communi cat i on). 140 R . B . B . Wa r dy presume ( h at i h c o ri g i n al cat egory of wh at is ) was rest rict ed t o qual it ies, rel ying in p ar t i c u l ar on t h e correct ness o fSc xt us ' quo t at i o n ( 68B 9). if suspicion sh ould fal l on any source, Sext us' re l i ab i l i t y comes i n t o quest i on rat h er t h an Plut arch 's, since h is Jesire t o po rt ray Democri t us as an anci ent prot o-Pyrrh oni st mi gh t very well encourage h im t o expl o i t h is mat eri al in a mi sl eadi ngl y n arro w fash i o n . Of course Democritus is a scept ic w i t h regard t o t h e appearances, according t o a reasonable underst anding of 'scept icism', and of course Sext us' evidence makes it cert ain t h at h e denies at least t h e real i t y of t h e propert ies enumerat ed. However, if we not e t h at Sextus' interest in t h e at o mi st i c t h esis woul d prob ab l y not ext end beyond it s apparent overlap wit h i n depen den t l y mot ivat ed worries ab out t h e rel iab il it y of t h e senses, we h ave sufficient reason t o t ake Pl ut arch 's addit ion seriously and ent ert ain t h e possibilit y t h at it preserves a h i n t of Democrit us' allegiance t o Eleat ic pl ural ism. 21 To sum up t h e posit ive indicat ions: first , from Pl ut arch , t h e compreh ensive claim t h at everything macroscopic is merely . On my h ypot h esis t h is is because t h e mut ab i l i t y of all comb inat ions renders t h em unreal; t o suppose t h at there act ually are ei t h er men or groups of at oms is arb it raril y t o impose a makebelieve (because impossib l e) convent ion on realit y. Second, perh aps t h e reject ion of complex unit ies fol l ows from t h e at t empt t o avoid post ulat ing t h e existence of any pluralit y. Finally, one mi gh t speculat e t h at t h e neat division of t h e fact ors held responsible for t h e appearance of macroscopic change int o int rinsic atomic characteristics and relational feat ures is suggest ive, al t h ough far from conclusive. Shape, size and maybe weight are int rinsic, arrangement , posit ion and numb er are relat ional; change in intrinsic propert ies, wh ich would indeed be real, is forbidden. Th e possible support for Eleatic pl ural i sm in t h e ancient sources is admit t edly not pl ent iful : in t h e following section, wh ere I sh all confront t h e much more imposing negat ive implicat ions of t h e doxogra- ph y, I sh all also at t empt t o account for t h e lack of help t o be found. IV To put t he difficul t y as b l unt l y as possible: If t he atomists are ul t imat e Eleat ics in t h e fash ion described, wh y don't t h e sources say 21 Barnes asks: "Does freezing wat er change from being t ransparent to being opaque? Does grass in high summer change from green to brown? Transparency and opacity, green and brown are not 4 real' qualities; they exist only c by convention'. Then perh aps t h e changes are similarly unreal, occurring only 'by convent ion'. Does t h e world cont ain apparent changes from green t o brown, or genuine changes from apparent green to apparent brown? As far as I can see, the Abderites did not pose t h ese quest ions; nor did t h ey grasp the importance of alteration in the neo-Ionian answer to Elea" ( 4345). Barnes fails to grasp the importance of Plutarch's t est imony and evident ly assumes t h at Sextus' catalogue is accurately comprehensive. Democrit us would reply t h at t h ere are only apparent , i. e. relational changes green is an apparent qualit y not because it is secondary, but precisely because its aut h ent icit y would ent ail the impossible occurrence of real change. Eleatic Pluralism 141 as much? In particular, why don't they explicitly remark that atomic aggregates, which are easily supposed to be acceptable reductive re- placements for ordinary objects, are in fact inadmissible for the reasons recounted? The beginnings of an answer become apparent if we recon- sider the moral of Parmenides' fate at the hands of the ancient histor- ians of philosophy (see nn. 6 and 7). The doxographers freely extract claims from either part of his poem which they indiscriminately ascribe to him as endorsed doctrine. In our opinion this is wantonly to disregard the all-important distinction between the Truth and the god- dess's instructively deceitful account of mortal opinion, although we concede that the precise workings of the stratagem remain obscure. What is the origin of this fundamental distortion in the sources? Aristotle tellingly informs us that Parmenides was compelled to follow the appearances: that is, as I interpret this intriguing description, even if he did not honestly own up and abandon his deduction under pressure from the palpable truth of things, Parmenides must seriously mean what he says in the latter half of his poem, where his ideas are (relatively) sensible. As an initial defence of my reading I suggest that in parallel fashion the ancient authorities fail accurately to express the actual nature of atomistic metaphysics and epistemology because they take it very much for granted that the core tenet of Eleaticism. the impossibility of real change, is a dead letter. They routinely misrep- resent Democritus, often as the advocate of the simple-minded reduc- tionism which I have been at pains to dismiss from serious considera- tion. In order to deepen this critical estimation of the standard portrayal of philosophers within the Eleatic tradition it will prove useful to subject Aristotle's exposition of the origins of atomism (De Generatione et Corruptione A8) to suspicious scrutiny. His analysis is generally accepted as pretty convincing: indeed, some commentators come dangerously close to according it canonical status without acknowledg- ing the full extent of their reliance on this single influential text. It is indeed of a high quality and not lightly to be set aside, but we should at least question Aristotle's famous explanation of Leucippus' motives. Aristotle asserts that Leucippus was concerned to effect a compro- mise between the appearances and Eleatic argumentation. But can t hi s claim as it stands be correct? Perhaps the atomist t hought he had arguments which, in saying things in agreement wi t h perception, did not abolish motion or the plurality of what is. However, t hat is not to agree that Leucippus must have regarded himself as re-i nst at i ng a ut he n- tic coming to be and passing away - rat her he seeks to show how 10 Arch (icsth Philosophic Bd 70 142 K . B . B . Wa r dy t h i n g s could look t h at way. The ru l i n g purpos e of t h e at omi s t s ' ent er- pri s e i s l o en ri c h t h e ori g i n al Eleat i c on t olog y an d al l ow some mi n i mal v a l i di t y t o t h e deli v eran ces of t h e senses wi t h out count enanci ng genuine ch an g es . Vi ewed as an at t empt at recon ci li at i on , t h ei r ext ens i on of t h e ran g e of permi s s i ble t h i n g s an d h appen i n g s may be judged di s appoi n t - i n g l y s mal l : all t h at remai ns of man i fold appearance i s plurali t y an d mot i on . Ari s t ot le's account glosses ov er t he meagre ext en t of Leu- ei ppus ' os t en s i ble concessions to the appearances not nearly s uffi - ci en t for hi s h ypot h es i s t o serv e as a leg i t i mat e compromise between the senses and reason. The Peri pat et i c present at i on of atomism as a recon ci li n g project has been allowed to pass mus t er far too easily. I n fact Ari s t ot le claims wh at one would expect hi m t o s ay for ph i los oph ers who enjoy his quali fi ed approv al, t h at they are rather like h i ms elf. An Ari s t ot eli an dul y considers t he suggestions of t he wise and the i n di cat i on s of perception, nicely balances competing ideas against each ot her, sagely eli mi n at es t he con v en i en t ly t i n y residue of intractable di s ag reemen t and luci dly present s a conserv ativ e theory which preserv es the best in the div erse sources on which he draws. Since Aristotelian ph i los oph y is an art of compromise, he n at urally pays Leucippus the compli men t of at t ri but i n g to him a mot i v at i on of which he highly approv es , alt h oug h t he atomist's v ali ant effort s failed t o unt i e t he kn ot wh i ch Ari s t ot le hi ms elf later unrav els . But t he pluralist Eleatics must hav e been rat h er more uncompromi si ng t h an t h at their aim was to accoun t for the pos s i bi li t y of error, not to concede ev en the part i al t rut h of the ontological claims of Parmenides' opponents, illicitly extra- polat i n g from the senses' acceptable testimony regarding the existence of plurali t y and mot i on to the unacceptable occurrence of real change. I t mi g h t be objected t hat this is jus t wh at Aristotle says about the mot i v at i on of at omi s m. But hi s actual formulat i on , t h at Leucippus i mag i n ed he had argument s which, agreeing with sense perception ( ), would not do away wi t h generat i on or perishing ( ), is indeed misleading. The at omi s t i c 'agreement wi t h the senses' comes to t hi s: t h ey dev elop a met aphysi cs whi ch can accommodate perceptual appearance wi t h out abandoni ng Eleatic fundament als . That man- oeuv re i n v olv es 'not doi n g away wi t h ' existential change on ly i nsofar as it allows for the possibility of mistakenly supposing that such change occurs. (The tactic is not un li ke t hat whereby a hard determinist recognises the subjective ph en omen on of free will and achiev es 'agree- men t wi t h the appearances' by pos t ulat i ng t h at merely epistemic possi- bi li t y s uffi ces for the explanat i on of our feelings.) Ari s t ot le's " Eleatic Pluralism 143 " wrongly suggests a much more significant concession to the phenomena. The passage continues, "... [arguments which] would not do away with either generation or perishing or movement or the plurality of what is"; but and are for the atomists in a category entirely distinct from existential change. Since they really are, they truly are not 'done away with', and serve to account for the conceded appearance of and . Aristotle's words improperly suggest otherwise because for him the appearances together with their indica- tions of real change are manifestly veridical, not just 'apparent'. Aris- totle's highly influential and skewed portrait of atomism as a project of reconciliation is the first stage in the doxography's misrepre- sentation of Democritus' philosophical inspiration which is responsible for subsequent confusion concerning the nature and even the coherence of his attitude towards the appearances. If it be protested that this is special pleading prompted solely by the desire to explain away awkward evidence, one might respond that we are happy to dismiss very similar reports concerning Eleaticism's founder, and that a like privilege ought to be extended to his most subtle successor. Another potential source of embarrassment is the various reports recording Democritus' detailed atomistic account of the mechanisms of perception, Theophrastus' De Sensu in particular, since they correlate atoms with the macroscopic objects and properties that I claim are rejected by Democritus as unreal. For example, when Theophrastus (DK 68A 135) asserts that according to the Democritean theory of vision "the air between the eye and the object of sight is contracted and stamped by the object seen and the seer", he clearly takes it for granted that the atomists' theory involved reference to macroscopic objects of perception (similar instances are of course to be found throughout the ancient reports). In response we should again indulge in a healthy suspicion t hat t he doxographers simply disregarded the Eleatic obligations of the at omi st s and were insensitive to the original dialectical context wherein these theories of perception were propounded. That is, Democritus mi ght on the one hand have committed himself to the possibility in principle of reformulating his perceptual analyses so as to avoid any conflict with the restriction of reality to i ndi vi dual atoms, but on t he ot her 1 0 * 144 R . B . B . W a r d y h a v e p c r m i l l c d h i ms e l f a r ange of f l e x i b l e di al ecti cal strategies on the s t r e ngt h o f t h a t t h e or e t i c a l t r a ns l a t i on. Perhaps t h e atomi sts' treatment of the senses took its s t ar t f rom the necessary concession that people do on I h e b asi s of t h e i r perceptual experiences ' i nf e r ' (or pre-theoretically a s s ume ) the ex istence of mut a b l e substances and properties, and offered c aus al e x p l a na t i ons of the sensation of i ntenti onal objects whi ch merel y seem to be. However, the ostensi b l y awkward referring terms of thi s p or t i on of the theory lack existential import. Their employment is excused by the need to engage the at t e nt i on of possible converts to the E l c ut i c t r ut h and al l ay doub ts about the prospects f or a satisfactory d i s s ol ut i on of the uni v e r s al l y f ami l i ar phenomena resistant to the or i gi nal Parmeni dean attack. Evi dentl y the sacrifices in expressive r i gour demanded b y the duty to ex tirpate anti-Eleatic error would render at omi s m vul nerab l e to subsequent distortion. A side-benefit of thi s reading is that it suggests a means of disposing of di s s ati s f acti on wi th Democritus' exclusive reliance on intrinsic atomi c di f f er enti ae in his aetiology of perception. On the standard i nt e r p r e t a t i on, one might very well feel disappointed with this feature of the account. A good reductionist should realise that he can and mus t avai l himself of the emergence of higher-order properties at levels ab ove base in order adequately to explain the unreduced phenomena. The complaint then is that Democritean reductionism is woefully def ecti ve because it attempts to compose manifestly inadequate ana- lyses drawi ng solely on base-level atomic characteristics. But according to my hypothesis Democritus is not a reductionist, and so trivially not a bad one. Because any acceptable candidate ex planation of perception mus t be susceptible, at least in principle, to translation into a final account maki ng reference only to individual atoms and the void, Democritus properl y abstained from employing non-existent atomic as essential postulates in his theory of sensation. Fi nal l y, one mi ght suppose that Democritean cosmogony poses an i ns urmountab l e problem for my reading surely this is the coming to be and passing away of massive atomic complexes! Any of the doxographical reports of the atomists' views on the formation of worlds seems inconvenient: according to them all Leucippus and Democritus cheerf ul l y quanti fi ed over in the cosmic sense, enormous pat- terns whi ch periodically arise and perish throughout the unlimited void. A pl ur al i ty of atoms comes together and produces a single world- generati ng (already the description is hardly consistent wi th the severity of the Eleatic restrictions on talk of 'patterns' rehearsed in Elealic Pluralism 145 section II), succeeded by the first spherical structure, etc., as cosmic evolution progresses. I again recommend placing these narratives in a perspective which discourages any automatic presumption that the atomists are necessar- ily committed to the existence of discrete, finite patterns that undergo genuine change. Expressed in a properly regimented Eleatic language whose referring terms range over nothing but individual atoms, cosmo- gony would no longer even seem to involve real , only a shift in the relations subsisting between a very great number of intrinsically immutable particles. Much more obviously than in the case of the theory of perception, effecting this translation would prove an imprac- ticable task: there are too many atoms, unmanageably related according to position. But that some regimentation isn't practically feasible does not and perhaps should not prohibit theoretical allegiance to the translation project this is a position occupied by some philosophers of science, and perhaps the ancient atomists adopted an analogous attitude. Furthermore, a philosopher convinced that some portion of ordinary discourse is radically misleading in its logical and ontological implications may nevertheless condone its use as innocuous so long as one recognizes that such talk is loose and inaccurate. Both Empedocles (DK 31 8) and Anaxagoras (DK 59B 17) make this point with regard to standard locutions for coming and ceasing to be. Democritus might very well have employed the same strategy, especially since fully ex- panded, proper expression according to his standards is beyond human capacity. VI One might fear that whatever the final, judicious verdict on the reliability of the doxography, on the possibility of a pervasive, distortive selectivity in the reports, Eleatic pluralism as I have sketched it is in any case far from constituting even a limited philosophical ideal. If there are not really any composite things, how can Democritus t hi nk correctly, ourselves, incorrectly? How can anyone perceive or t hi nk? Individual atoms are not sensate. If groups of them are, then at least one set of apparent macroscopic objects does not dissolve away: individual minds. To attempt to do away with oneself philosophically is futile, to commit oneself to the effort, incoherent - someone is attempting metaphysical suicide. This is to launch a post-Cartesian attack: one is chargi ng t ha t , in order to make a clean sweep, Democritus would be obliged f ut i l c l y lo 146 R . B . B . Wa r d y de n y t he Cogit o. Nevert heless, it w i l l not do to attempt to excuse his neglect of the l oomi ng danger of sel f- refut at ion on the grounds that t h i s is a t ype of argume n t w it h w hich neither the atomist nor his compe t it ors w ere famil iar. Sextus informs us that Democritus himself mai n t ai n e d the falsity of the Protagorean doctrine that every appear- ance is t r ue " " (. vii. 389 90, and cf. adv. Colot. 1109A) . No mat t er t hat these reports might prove suspect in details; w e are best advised to assume that a Democritus advocating a version of Eleatic pl ural ism w ould be w ell aw are of the penalty thereby in- curred. Mi gh t one not then speculate that such a realisation w ould abundant- ly suffice for the motivation of Democritus' epistemological pessimism (DK 68B 6, 10, 117), w hose occasion otherw ise remains obscure, and perhaps account for the notorious nihilism of his successor Metrodorus (DK 70B 1)? To proclaim no one know s w hether w e know or not, or even w hether there is or is not anything, w ould be an apt expression of the profound dilemma inherited by the follow ers of Parmenides, t hat to embrace and expound his truth inevitably entails succumbing to error, if only by instantiating it. If so, our reaction to the ultimate unt enabil it y of Democritus' stance ought to be admiration for his combination of dexterity in formulating his unreality-thesis and honesty in confessing its signal defect; on my hypothesis he has after all greatly improved on the sheer inexplicability of the appearances given the resources of Eleatic monism. I submit that Eleatic pluralism is a philosophical system of considerable intrinsic interest, and that it is w hat Democritus should have maintained; if he did not, then w e must question our supposition that the repercussions of Parmenides' deduction shape an entire epoch in the history of philosophy. 22 22 An earlier version of t his paper w as read at the Cambridge 'B' Club. I' am t h a n kf ul for the audience's incisive criticisms on that occasion, and have derived furt he r help from discussions w ith M. F. Burnyeat, N. C. Denyer, and G. E. R. Lloyd.
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